Sunday, May 4, 2008

i am bursting at the seams with thoughts that are jumbled in my mind. maybe spewing them onto the screen will look messy, but i'd like to share it all with you...

last monday, alison and her family stopped by for dinner on their way back from her graduation...wow graduation! she just got her peace corps assignment in GUINEA, which is so amazing. a lot of my anthropology classes focus on guinea groups and i think she's going to find a really beautiful land and people there...but from what i gather, there is much to do and help with there, too. i can't wait to hear of her adventures and see her change herself and others over the coming years. i will definitely be saving my pennies to come see her.

tonight, all the roomies (and andy) and i were searching the "missed connections" in madison on craigslist. i get such a kick out of reading them. there's something painfully sweet, hopeful, and sometimes sad about them. we decided it'd be good to post our own missed connection, so we posted one for the boy ahead of me in line on friday who so sweetly bought me a lemonade at the juice stand in library mall. i like the idea of putting some small spark out there into the world, even if it is through the cliched internet, and feeling anonymous and optimistic at the same time. it all feels so innocent and somehow fun in this really refreshing way.

mifflin street block party was yesterday. it was interesting to say the least. the beginning was amazingly fun. i saw a lot of dear friends i hadn't seen in a good while...mainly noah's roommates (and noah, that stranger)! kids everywhere were in good spirits. however, the cops were not, and we had a bit of a mess with buttons and stace. i'm not going to go into it at present because i don't know if the girls would like that...but the city of madison really fucked up. that's all i'm going to say...for now. it's funny in some way though. because i think i always kind of put mifflin on a pedestal. When the day got crazy and didn't go the way we wanted it to, we all just dealt with it. i learn that i didn't really care about mifflin street block party on the grand scale. there are things that are much more important in life. like friends.

i just listened to an interview with emily martin of my favorite blog theblackapple(which i posted about awhile back) on the craftsanity podcast and now i love her even more. she lamented about how hard it was for her to splurge on her FIRST BUTTON MAKER, too! i think we're twins. i'm so gonna go SWF on her (have you ever seen that crazy movie?).

i've been crafting, reading, and writing a lot lately. but still, it doesn't ever seem like enough. lately, i find myself daydreaming of full days alone in some lovely little space where i can sketch, paint, dance (badly), and craft until all my creative juices are pumping in my veins. then the daydream takes me to a small typewriter in the corner of this darling room, where i write with a smile on my face for days and days.

i have been talking to my parents a lot lately about how frustrated/confused/excited/nervous i am about possibilities and the future. sometimes my mom comes back to the idea of me getting an mfa and then taking time to write "the next great american novel"...right. i really appreciate having supportive parents. i'm very lucky.

the thing is...that's an incredibly scary and beautiful option to have. i think artists are much more than their own worst critic. we can be our own full-out boogie man, too. possibility of failure and even failure itself can be really healthy. sometimes i forget that. how will i know if i'm a good writer if i never give myself the precious time and fragile patience needed to cultivate myself into one? or maybe not into one? does it really even matter?

i never want to hate writing because other people don't get mine. and that happens a lot to writers...they get bitter. but at the same time, i know that if i stop writing i'll explode. or rot inside. or somehow maybe both. maybe it's not about writing at all, though. i think, in the end, i just have the innate need growling in my body to create. that's not original at all. that's a universal need. or at least i hope it is.

i have to say, i'm starting to definitely be okay with graduating. i could not be more obsessed with madison and the university of wisconsin, but there's also this knot in my stomach that i feel can only be untangled by change. i'm excited to have a new space, though i'm sure it'll be a tiny one, to call my own and create a sanctuary out of. i'm excited to take my current friendships to new limits, dynamics, and connections. i'm excited to meet wildly interesting new people, as well. i'm excited to force myself to have the types of days that i daydream about. i'm excited to have really awful days, too at a new job (fingers crossed) that i really love and isn't awful at all. i know i complain a lot, but i really do love love LOVE the idea of publishing and i'm so dreadfully anxious and excited to begin the whole deal of it.

no matter what, my end goal is to just be happy. i don't think that's too much to ask. i now pledge to you and to myself that if i'm not happy in the coming months than i will do everything in my power to create more change until i find and do whatever it is that makes me happy. shake on it, partner.

with all this talk of the elusive creativity and possibilities and failures and success supposedly floating around in the air (what if it's like pollen and even though one might be in the "spring" of ideas, he or she is allergic?!) i want to share a tid-bit from mike mcgee's "i mailed myself a love letter today," which just happened to come up on my itunes shuffle just now. i adore mike mcgee. when i listen to his poetry, i want to run out the door, find him, and give that burly man a huge hug for many, leveled, complicated reasons...just like his poetry. this poem was meant to be heard at this specific moment because i think it can be related to everything i've just rambled on about.

from "i mailed myself a love letter today" by mike mcgee:

I promised myself years ago that I would never settle for average or mediocre, that I would always try to find the best and worst within myself and maybe I’d be able to work the two out so that they could learn from each other

It’s one thing to say that I’m worthy of love, it’s another thing to say that I’m worthy of my own

Cuz here I am with all this love to give and it seems as though I’m still trying to find myself so I know who to give it to"

beautiful, right?

i'm sorry i always write about a million different things in some insanely long post. i'm sure we are now in "no man's land" and no reader is still with me here at this point, which is no fault of yours! i'm a very bad girl and i apologize.